Complicit
by Mel88
Summary: Hermione Granger is called to Malfoy Manor in the middle of night, and it could only be for one reason: someone is dead.


**Author's Note** : This piece was written for the 2017 DramioneLove Mini Fest on LiveJournal. My prompt was submitted by 10oclockfairy: Draco accidentally kills Lucius when he's beating on Narcissa. Auror Hermione helps him hide the crime.

Thanks to my insanely tolerant beta, eilonwy, for agreeing to take on such a dark piece.

 **Warnings for domestic violence, blood and gore, and minor character death. Please don't read if these are triggers for you.**

Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. This fanfiction was written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.

 **Complicit**

It's two a.m.

The night is deep and silent, and it feels as though time itself has stopped. The crack of Apparition, instead of echoing across the great expanse of land, is swallowed whole. Maybe it's exhaustion, maybe it's anxiety, but right now, nothing feels real. The manor towering over her is too large, too dark, and the disproportionate lines and corners dizzy her. She can't look at it. She wants to leave, but she can't do that, either.

The door swings forward at the mere suggestion of her touch, and Hermione Granger crosses the threshold, wand drawn. Faint moonlight filters through the tall windows at the end of the main hall, coloring everything a slightly lighter shade of black. She knows the manor's layout, knows its decor. Logically, she understands where the shadows should be and what their shapes mean, but her eyes strain against the low light and her brain exaggerates the images, seeing movement where there is stillness and faces where there should be nothing. She lights her wand.

Hermione's heart beats faster, and her footsteps are not as measured as they should be as she climbs the curving, marble staircase. She pauses at the top to catch her breath and reorient herself. Her hand trembles as she holds her wand aloft and winds through the hallways, surrounded by the faint whispers of family portraits.

She turns a corner and bites back a scream.

Narcissa Malfoy stands before her, and she is almost unrecognizable. The left side of her face is livid with blackish-purple and dark, dusky-blue bruises, and her eye is swollen over. Her nose is crooked. Blood oozes from both nostrils and trails over her cracked lips and a jaw that doesn't seem to be in the right place. She holds one arm close to her body, crooked in such a way that Hermione knows it's either broken or dislocated. Her other arm comes up to clutch at the neck of her silk robe, but not fast enough to hide the blotchy yellow-green of old injuries.

The women's eyes meet, Hermione's wide with horror, Narcissa's narrowed in pain, yet proud and unapologetic. Without a word, the matriarch steps around her and disappears into the darkness, her gait slow, stiff, and hurting in ways Hermione does not want to imagine.

A single candle floats just outside the room at the end of the hall. Within the radius of its light is where she confronts the inevitable.

Lucius Malfoy's naked body lies in a pool of blood, which is black and glossy in the candle's flickering light. His neck is deeply severed. Hermione raises her wand to track the arc of the arterial spray along the floor, wall, and ceiling, then passes it over his body. The deep wound caused blood to sheet down his neck, parting as it reached his shoulders and moving left with gravity as Lucius first fell to his knees, then collapsed onto his side. Where not covered with blood, his skin - as characteristically pale as his son's - is dusted with light, golden hairs. His half-closed grey eyes and partially open mouth give him a drowsy, vacant look.

As a youth, she had hated him for obvious, comparatively simple reasons: prejudice and the attempted murder of several of her friends. As an adult, her hatred had turned to loathing, and her reasons, like the roots of a tree, branched and dug deeper. Looking at him now, bloodless and finally stripped of power, she feels a grim sense of justice.

"You came."

She turns from the corpse. Draco Malfoy steps forward, half of him still wreathed in shadow. The half she can see is splattered liberally with his father's blood.

"There's only one reason you would Floo me at this hour, and I had to know. Was it you?"

"Yes."

She holds his gaze for a moment. "Would a Priori Incantatem confirm it?"

Draco lifts his chin, an unconscious gesture that gives Hermione all the answer she needs.

"Narcissa needs to go to St. Mungo's."

"The elves will see to her. They're as competent as any Healer."

Hermione's mouth twists into a sour expression - they shouldn't have needed to be.

Draco seems to read her thoughts. "It's over now," he offers. "He can't hurt her anymore."

"You think that changes anything?" she snaps. "This was _preventable_. If you had let me help her -"

"It wasn't your business. You overstepped."

"And it becomes my business the minute there's a corpse? When it's too late to protect her or prosecute him?"

" _I_ protected her."

" _This time_. What about before, when we were together? Or before then, after the war?"

"This was different. He was going to kill her."

"I don't doubt that."

"What do you want me to say?" He closes the distance and stares her down. "That I should've listened to you instead of leaving you? That I should've done something sooner?"

"Yes."

She crosses her arms, and they stand too close in the hostile silence.

"You didn't call me over just to show me his corpse."

"No," he says. "I need your help."

Though she had suspected his motive, hearing it confirmed is still a blow. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

"You don't know what you're asking. This runs counter to everything -"

"I know."

"You _don't_! This is more than just disposing of a body, Draco. People will notice he's missing. There will be an inquiry. You and Narcissa will be questioned under Veritaserum. The Aurors will tear this place apart until they find something."

"Unless there's nothing to find," Draco says, emphatic. He grabs her shoulders. "Unless _you_ redirect the inquiry away from us. There's no one better, no one who knows more about the investigation process, no one else I can trust -"

"Draco -"

"They'll never know."

" _I'll_ know."

"Hermione, you have to."

She strikes his cheek, smearing blood across her palm.

"I don't have to do _anything_ for you," she seethes.

Draco straightens, his eyes shining. "It's not _for_ me." He drops his hands to her arms, holding her like he used to. "Mother will live with her scars for the rest of her life," he says quietly. "But if the Ministry finds out, she'll have to live with the loss of her son, too. She deserves a chance at happiness more than I deserve to be in Azkaban, and you're the only one who can give her that."

Hermione considers him for a long time, her head aching and her heart wrenching in two directions.

Finally, she steps away from him.

"You're despicable," she says, voice cruel and hard. "You're selfish, and a coward, and I don't know how I ever loved you." He flinches as her words strike home. "And so you need to understand that this is _not_ for you. This is for Narcissa, and Narcissa alone. And once we're finished here, we're _finished_. You will not contact me. You will not speak to me. You will not _look_ at me."

His face remains stoic, though his eyes seem to soften.

"You don't know what you're asking," he whispers.

She lifts her chin. "I do."

He holds her gaze for a moment more. She knows what he's waiting for and knows she can't give it to him. She cannot waiver, cannot break, cannot allow their history to further cloud her already obfuscated judgment.

He's made her complicit for the final time.

"Very well," he consents. "This is it."

She nods once and turns away from him, her resolve firm.

"Light some candles," she says, staring at Lucius' cooling body. "We have work to do."

 **The End**


End file.
